Of course, some of the characters were created primarily in the computer including Benny the Talking Book and Heston the Snake, one of Tommy O’Haver’s favorite creations. “I love Heston because he harks back to my love of cartoons and he reminds me of all those great evil sidekick snakes, from Sir Hiss in ‘Robin Hood’ to Kaa in ‘Jungle Book,’ but he has a personality all his own,” he says. “Watching him be created was something new for me, and a magical experience.”
Magic is exactly what cinematographer John de Borman wanted to capture in his photography and lighting for the film. “We worked very hard to get exactly the right look,” he comments. “We wanted it to really pop out like a fable or dream so I started by taking digital photographs of each location and set – and then manipulating the colors to give everything, from the sky to the earth, a bright, pastel, fairy tale feeling. Then I convinced the producers that even though we would shoot on film, that we had to convert everything to digital right away so we could keep the consistency of color throughout. It was a very intense process.” De Borman looked at a lot of classic Technicolor films, including “The Wizard of Oz,” for inspiration. “I also overlit the exteriors and even the night scenes to get a more magical look. Another thing we did with light is to create a special turquoise moonlight that isn’t exactly natural but has its own cartoon-like quality to it,” he explains.
As for the problems of scale – mixing and matching giants, elves and humans on screen – the solutions fell to Special Effects supervisor Angus Bickerton. Tommy O’Haver points out: “We didn’t’ exactly have the budget of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ so a lot of our solutions were more low-tech,” he says. “But it worked because we were creating a comic book world where it seems anything can happen.”
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